The warrior kid
While most 16-year-olds are learning to drive, studying for exams or trying to outsmart their parents, one high-flying teen is busy suing the United States government. Hannah Martin meets the remarkable Xiuhtezcatl Martinez-Roske.
Xiuhtezcatl Martinez-Roske
Despite his protests to the contrary, Xiuhtezcatl MartinezRoske is no ordinary 16-year-old. In the past 18 months he has addressed the United Nations – in a donated suit – and is a plaintiff in an ongoing federal lawsuit against the US government for violating people’s constitutional right to life, liberty and property through its lack of action in tackling climate change.
The square-jawed teenager with the black hair that has never been cut (and now sweeps to his waist) is a picture-perfect eco-warrior – and he’s in New Zealand at the moment to spread his message of climate activism.
His age, culture, passion and experience all make him an anomaly: someone to champion the frontlines, someone to make environmental activism palatable.
Xiuhtezcatl (pronounced shutez-kat), who lives in Boulder, Colorado, laughs as he describes how he has become a ‘‘low-key local celebrity’’ while travelling the world with his Earth Guardians: Awaken tour. But that celebrity status was enough for THINK INC, Australia’s answer to TED Talks, to bring him halfway around the world to speak at Kawai Purapura, a yoga retreat centre on Auckland’s North Shore.
He’s been an active voice on climate change issues for a decade, is more articulate than most adults, and speakswith a confidence and conviction that would be unusual even in a person decades older.
That confidence will this week deliver a warning to New Zealand about how climate change affects us, how the pipeline protest at Standing Rock, North Dakota, relates to climate change and what impact the Paris agreement will have on greenhouse gases.
Xiuhtezcatl is indigenous Meshika, of the Aztec people of Mexico City. He was raised rich in his father’s indigenous roots and is tri-lingual, speaking his native Nahuatl language, Spanish and English.
His childhood was steeped in ritual – he grew up on a diet of cultural ceremony – the songs and prayers of giving back to the earth.
‘‘I was raised with a lot of awareness and consciousness about my presence as a human being in the world. As an indigenous person we have a connection to, and responsibility to protect and fight for, this land.’’
Xiuhtezcatl is now the youth director for Earth Guardians, a global organisation which rallies together young activists, artists and musicians in the fight against climate change. His mother, Tamara Roske – a fellow activist – founded the movement in 1992.
Environmental justice runs deep – it’s in his blood.
At 13, he and his younger brother, Itzcuauhtli, then nine, were invited to talk about fracking at a middle school in Colorado. The pair performed their viral hit What the Frack and spoke to their peers about what was happening in their own backyards.
He talked about methane gas and toxic chemical leaking into local drinking water, contaminating it.
In 2011, the New York Times obtained thousands of internal documents showing that wastewater from fracking could not be properly treated at sewage plants and had been discharged into rivers that supply drinking water. That water was found to contain radioactivity at levels far higher than federal regulators deemed safe for treatment plants to handle, the newspaper reported.
The Martinez-Roske brothers weren’t prepared for the barrage of criticism and hate-mail they would receive from parents, the oil industry, lobbyists and climate change sceptics. Xiuhtezcatl’s voice had power, and people started listening.
The attention he received as far afield as Sweden took him by surprise; although he’s aware
I think there will come a time when I feel comfortable enough with what I’ve done, when I’ll be able to take a step back.
people hold him in high esteem because he is young and politically active.
This is more visible in some places than others, he says, but it doesn’t affect his ability to just be a teenager – to go to school and just ‘‘live life’’.
‘‘I wouldn’t say I’m treated differently,’’ he says, ‘‘but there’s a great sense of awareness in the people around me that are like, ‘Whoa, this kid is doing a lot’.’’
When asked if his friends and peers are as active and supportive of him and the cause, he smiles and says, ‘‘yeah – they’re dope.’’
How does a teenager who rubs shoulders with celebrities and can count Mark Ruffalo and Shailene Woodley among his group of friends stay grounded? It’s simple, he says. ‘‘Through music.’’ He’s a hip-hop artist, rapper and songwriter and has performed on stages throughout the US. Music is his passion, it’s the one thing that gives him the ability to balance his life.
‘‘When I write music I don’t just write about the environment, I write about what it means to be 16 in the world. I write about friends of mine who have committed suicide. I write music to make people dance. It’s different, it’s saved me.’’
He insists that when he isn’t on the frontlines, jet-setting, or appearing on talk shows, he’s busy being a teenager.
Like a typical teen, he’s still hanging out with his friends and going on adventures.
‘‘I love just going out and driving into the mountains, not necessarily knowing where you’re going.’’
He lives and breathes the ocean, and loves to surf. He also skis, plays soccer and likes doing flips ‘‘and crazy stuff like that’’.
Most of us felt like we were carrying the world on our shoulders as teenagers, but Xiuhtezcatl embodies that differently: When speaking about what it means to be in the role he is, with so much responsibility at such a young age, his tone changes.
‘‘I stand before you representing my entire generation,’’ he said, opening his address to the UN high-level assembly on climate change. ‘‘Youth are standing up all over the planet to find solutions. We are flooding the streets and now flooding the courts.’’
After being appointed to the board of Bioneers, a nonprofit organisation which promotes practical and innovative solutions for global environmental and biocultural challenges, Xiuhtezcatl joked in his address, ‘‘People are like, ‘Oh what’s the solution? How do you fix the world?’ and I’m just like ‘Damn, you know, I’m 16. I’m trying to figure it out too’.’’
He knows his voice is unique: ‘‘it has a different effect on people than, say, a scientist or politician speaking about climate change.’’
He’s mindful of how people thrust him into the spotlight because of his difference. ‘‘I think my voice stands out in a world where there is a lot of noise and conversation.’’
‘Ifeel like there’s a lot of weight on my shoulders – that’s one of the greatest struggles I face. There’s a lot to live up to,’’ he concedes.
Xiuhtezcatl is trying to empower young people to engage with the world through environmentalism, music and art because he doesn’t want to go it alone. He’d much rather step back as a leader, and let other youth lead the way.
‘‘That’s a great hope of mine, to build a movement alongside me so we can tackle these problems together.’’
He’s not walking alone; he has 26,808 Facebook followers alongside thousands of Twitter and Instagram followers – and his movement is growing.
Will he consider giving up on the so-called frontlines, giving up the good fight?
Maybe, he says. But he’ll always ‘‘be on fire’’.
‘‘I think there will come a time when I feel comfortable enough with what I’ve done, when I’ll be able to take a step back.
‘‘I’m always going to be someone that is passionate about these issues because as people we need to change the way that we think about these issues.’’
It begins simply, he says, just by tapping into our humanity.
‘‘I’m excited to see where more young people waking up to their own voice takes the world.’’